Annapolis Boat Show and the List of Questions

Entering the 2014 Annapolis Sailboat Show

I want to take this time to reach out to all those that visited us on Calypso during the Annapolis Boat Show. Thank you for your interest. If there are any additional questions or comments please post them on our blog and we will answer you! 

So many couples these days are weighing the pros and cons of taking up the sailing life, what boat to buy, how much to spend, considering walking away from major careers, adapting to retirement and wondering if is the right time. Many are wondering/concerned about the forced intimacy of living with your spouse 24-7-365 on a boat. I don't think there are correct answers to these questions, only answers that fit best with your own wishes and desires. It continues to astound me just how similar we all are in our thoughts, fears, and aspirations. I will try to answer the most common questions that were put to us during the show from our experience, what has felt right for us, so far. 


1. What do you like most about Calypso. What would you change if you had it to do again?

Maite likes the windows, the "livability", Calypso just fits like someone had designed her shape to fit the way we live. (Surprise, somebody did...his name is Ted Clements).  The boat is just so easy to sail, it's like she's a member of your crew. She often times knows better what to do than we do. We have toyed with placing a downhaul through the raceway to the rear winch, and I think that might be a good plan. We also chose to upgrade our mattress to a traditional queen mattress that fit just fine in the birth. It is a bit thicker but it is much more comfortable. 

2. Is living aboard what you expected? Is it more work than you expected? What surprised you?

Calypso 2014 Annapolis Sailboat Show

In any lifestyle there are things that are what you expected and things that are not. Living aboard is work, really more than I thought...not a retirement. I should have known this. I was certainly told often enough. Exploring, navigating, provisioning, cleaning, polishing, repairing, and more cleaning. The do list is never empty, ever. The biggest challenges are not sailing, that is the easy part, although there are levels of expertise in sailing as well that we are just beginning to explore. Long passages can seem like work, day sails or overnights are usually pure fun. 

Just a small sampling of Antares owners that attended the show. Laurie, Gail, Jason,
Salwa, Craig, Mary, Charles, Jeff aboard LiveWide 2014 Annapolis Show

 Another thing I was told, but was still pleasantly surprised by was that sailors are just plain friendly. The things you share in common tend to break down social barriers very quickly, so you get to know people very fast. Since you never know when you might need a stranger's help, you tend to be generous and very quick to lend a hand. It's just human nature. Most sailors are very giving people. I think that may be largely an act of self preservation, but it still really feels nice. 


We found that the genders can react differently to taking on the responsibility of cruising, the whole Mars/Venus, pink job/blue job thing starts with the way you view the world and yourself within it. Things that seem trivial to me are really important to Maite and visa versa. Both points of view are important and must be considered and addressed or you won't be sailing for long. It may seem that it should be obvious to your spouse that something is not working, but under the stress of piloting a very complicated piece of machinery, the intimacy of living in close quarters, and the different perspectives of the parties, nothing is obvious. The same process occurs onboard that occurs at home, except you are in each other's faces all the time, and the decisions you make together can be life saving or life threatening ones, so working on communication skills becomes very important. Find ways to address the concerns/fears of your spouse. Be generous. Work to make it a positive experience for both of you as often as possible.

3. How do you feel about retiring and leaving the workplace at 58 and 54 years old?

Rob Poirier (Co-president Antares Yachts)

Tough question. We both have times when we feel bad about not contributing. Being productive is part of how one maintains a sense of self esteem. It helps me to realize that retirement is never a matter of if, but a matter of when, so the struggle to move into retirement is universal and we are all bound to face it sooner or later.  Maite and I sometimes struggle to feel we deserve early retirement even though we would probably be too old to sail if we waited another ten years. Maite went several decades seeing me only a few hours per day, and I feel she deserves as much of my time as she would like before we are too old or unhealthy to have adventures. There are ways to contribute that don't entail an 7 am to 6 pm job and we are finding ways to be useful. I don't miss the 70 hour weeks.  Leaving a profession you spent 14 years to train for is a little unsettling but it has mostly been a positive experience.

  4. Were you an accomplished sailor before you bought and Antares 44i?

Huh, NO. We had done all the ASA classes, and had a two engine motorboat on a lake for eight years, so I had plenty of motoring and docking practice. We rented sailboats in the BVIs twice, a monohull the first time, a 44' Leopard cat the second. Also took a 440 Lagoon from Ft. Lauderdale across the Gulf Stream as part of one of our classes. That's really about it. We knew that was a weak spot and attended courses when we had time to build our knowledge base. I was an instrument rated multiengine pilot with about 2000 hours which also helped. Maite and I are both considering taking the 6 pack course and exam, just to improve our abilities, (and lower our insurance)!

  5. Is the support from the company as good as they say it is?

Jeff Woodman (Co-president Antares Yachts)

The support from our perspective is all that is advertised. For us, Rob, Jeff, Salwa and even Ted are tireless in helping us through this challenging process. Rob works the sales side, helps you with picking out options, sets up the Antares Univerities, and is the go to person before your boat is delivered. Jeff works the warranty side, and is the go to person when things break or malfunction during the first year. He is also the one who actually handles purchasing, oversees supply chain issues, payroll and so forth. Together they work very hard on your behalf and continue to do so far after the sale. In Argentina our experience was that Memo, Santi, Sancho, Pedro all worked equally hard. It is a foreign land and there are challenges for everybody, but they are on your side. There is tremendous goodwill between customers and company for a reason even though they cannot build the boats fast enough to keep up with the demand. 

6. Have your sailing plans changed since you started?

Maite "holding court"

We had a dream of learning to sail our boat in the Caribbean and U.S. east coast then circumnavigating when the kids were a bit older. What we have learned is that every time a choice of destination is made, a hundred are skipped. There are more than enough destinations in our cruising ground to keep us exploring for years. We are now willing to just go destination to destination and season to season avoiding longer time lines when things tend to change week to week. We may go through the Panama Canal at some point, but that is then and this is now. We have been through the canal by cruise ship and it is miraculous, but no more than sites we have already seen. Learning about my own heritage in Plymouth, the War of 1812 and the Civil War has been very cool and there is so much more in our own backyard.

7. Did you have any storms during which you were afraid?

Maite answering questions

Small concentrated rain storms (squalls) are a fact of cruising. You see them coming, reef in your sales and wait out the increased wind. That being said we have gotten into one or two without doing all of that and regretted that decision. Another example of knowing better, but trying to get by. That did create a bit of angst. 

Avoiding major weather fronts by picking your best "weather windows" is also the idea. Swells that you encounter at sea are caused by wind and grow the harder and longer it blows. It is therefore easy enough to have a clear day with large swells hitting your boat that were created hundreds of miles away. What is more important than swell size is there periodicity (time between peaks) and the direction from which they are coming in relation to the direction of your boat. "Head seas" are coming at you and your forward motion tends to decrease the time between each wave. Getting into seas like this is not much fun and can be hard on your boat. When the swells are moving the same direction you are, they tend to overtake the boat, but the time between each swell is longer and the ride much better. We have not ever been afraid that the boat would flip or sink, although we have often times wanted to be somewhere else because the head seas were beating us up. There have also been a few lightening storms that have concerned us, as a lightening strike can cause devastation to you electronics on board. We are new and very cautious at this point, so we have not been in any major storms yet. We have seen 10 - 12 foot seas on the beam (coming from the side), but nothing worse.

Whose got the biggest camera? Salwa, it's always Salwa

8. How do you know how provision the boat, how much to buy, etc.

Other owners helped a great deal here. There tends to be plenty of room for can food and dry goods, not so much for vegetables, fruit, and dairy. After just a bit of practice this becomes second nature.

9. Do you get sea sick? How do you handle it?

I was really concerned about this at first, because I knew that I got sea sick. I hoped I would acclimate and feel better. It affects people differently. Maite gets headaches, I get nauseated and blow groceries. Everyone has a favorite remedy that they use. I have learned to accept that it happens to me and not get all twisted up about it. When it happens it happens. We deal with it, but try not to make a federal case over it. That worry only makes it worse. Scopolamine patches seem to work the best for us, but everyone is different.

10. Do you like the galley down configuration?

Eric Maynard (LiveWide) and father with Jeff Woodman

Absolutely. This a marketing misnomer in my opinion. It is not as easy as up or down. The Antares galley is open to the salon, but down two steps to keep the mess away from the salon. If you are in the galley you are just as much a "part of the action" as if you were standing amidships. Most people would prefer not to have their kitchen inside their living room...they would prefer a house to an efficiency apartment. So it is with the Antares. The galley is laid out to be easy for two people to use at a time, but keeps the cooking, spills, dirty dishes and so forth out of sight from the salon. In a rough sea having a long thin space allows you to use your hands more while preparing food because you can wedge yourself with your legs. On most galley up designs, its one hand for holding and one for cooking. In the Antares the salon stays as your living room. I love it.

11. Are the dogs a bother? How did you train them to do their business?

Nala overseeing final preparation of Calypso for the show

Tyler overseeing final preparation
of Calypso for the boat show

Dogs are a bother. They shed, do their poo poo, have to go out at night. In fact they do all the stuff they do on land, but you learn to manage the process like everything else, and they are part of our family. We brush them more often to keep the hair down; we bought a small Dyson vacuum to stay ahead of the shedding, we put down carpet to keep them off the wood, and they learned to do their business on the trampolines where we can wash it away with the salt water wash down. We did not really train them, they trained us. The key was persistence and support. They got it in time. Now it's easy, peezy. (Nice term, thanks Jason)

12. Do you eat out a lot, or make dinner regularly on the boat?

We do eat out quite a bit in order to explore our new surroundings. We could save money by cutting back on this and on marinas, which will likely be the case in time, but for now we enjoy both.

13. What is watch like?

When the boat is making a crossing or passage and is moving, someone must be in control at all times. At sea the depth is far greater than the length of our anchor chain so anchoring is not an option. There are ways of "pulling over" but generally it is better if the conditions are OK to sail. Since there are usually only two of us onboard we must take turns at the helm. Two or three hours on and two or three hours off through the night. Passages are fun until you get exhausted, then they are just work. We tend to motor within the intercostal water way only during the day and anchor at night, while at sea we can sail round the clock.

14. Are we both equally comfortable at the helm?

No. Maite is fine on watch. She knows how to adjust course, set and reset the autopilot and plotters and trim sails. She is not yet extremely comfortable with docking or close in maneuvering. She is also not yet comfortable with decision making in selecting sail plan after big wind shifts. We still are working to master the process of dousing the asymmetric spinnaker. We have had real good help from several of the sailors in the fleet including Jason and Jeff, but we still lack some experience with this sail and I would judge our abilities as low passing grade at best.

15. What was it like having strangers walking through your home during the boat show?

Honestly that runs the gamut. There were some couples that reminded us so much of ourselves several years ago. There were others that you knew were not and never would be sailors. When people come aboard and just don't understand what they are seeing and can't appreciate the design, it's really OK, I was there once. When they come onboard just to criticize and are just ignorant I get a bit testy. When I was in their shoes there were couples that passed on their experiences and advice in a very humble and unassuming way. I lapped that up and remain grateful to this day. In some small way we are trying to pass that on. 

16. What did you do with all your stuff from you house?

We gave 23 car loads of stuff to the Goodwill. We gave a bunch away to my son's fraternity. We rented a 10' x 20' x 10' storage unit and stuffed the things we couldn't throw away into it. We return several times a year to take more and more to Goodwill. By the time we decide to move inland it will most likely have been largely given away to charity, except for our Yamaha grand piano.

17. How well do you keep in touch with your kids?

We talk to them more now than ever before. We travel to where they go to school and pay for them to come to see us, more than ever before. It was hard coming up from Argentina and Brazil, but after that it has been better than ever. Along the east coast we have cell phones until we get more than 10 miles of shore, then we have our KVH which gives great phone service at 50 cents/minute anywhere in the world. As our kids have trouble using the phone and prefer to text it can still be a challenge at times.

18. How much does it cost to live on a boat?

We have cut our expenses in half since moving aboard and that includes about $10,000 in captains fees and buying things for the boat on our way up from Argentina.

Now that it is stocked, we have lived very cheaply the last few months. Lifestyle choices such as anchoring or going into marinas, going out to eat or staying aboard, driving your boat at high rpm or using economical cruising settings, land travel, all these things influence how expensive it is to live on a boat. It will cost less than living at home, how much less depends upon you.

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We must give credit for much of what we have learned to those upon who's shoulders we stand, owners before us that have helped and encouraged us to get to where we are. Many are tireless in solving problems, improvising new solutions and sharing their hard earned knowledge with our community. 

Craig and Laurie are always the first on my list. They hosted our first Antares University in Grenada. I can remember the first time I walked aboard Alberta Crewed I felt as though I was being introduced to a couple of movie stars since I had followed their blog for so long. They also hosted our first major passage from Wilmington, NC to Georgetown, Exumas. Laurie's blog is always a treat to read, and gratefully she and Craig will be returning to Alberta Crewed later this year. That usually means she will begin to publish again! 

Eric is at the top as well. He and Carla have allowed us to hang out at their dock behind Eric's home and prep for the show since we reached the Chesapeake several weeks ago. They have been so gracious, with their time and knowledge of Baltimore and the Chesapeake. Many thanks to them! 

Mark, Sarah, Neil, Shaun, Jason, Gail, Alon, Mike, Ian, Phillipa, Ross, Ashlyn, Jeff, Rob, Salwa, Beth, Martin and Memo our captains on the legs from Buenos Aires, Steve and Linda from Seaman's Elixir who first got us serious about this adventure during the Miami Show in 2009, we owe you all more than we can ever repay. There are others we have met, that we look forward to getting to know better and sailing with like Ellen, Rand, Mary, Jeff and many others as, after all, our journey has really just begun.

I will get back to our trek toward Plymouth in my next post and try to get up to date soon. Currently we have staged Calypso and are waiting for a weather window to head south. St. Michaels first, then Williamsburg, Jamestown, then past Norfolk into the Dismal Swamp, Pamlico Sound and into the Carolinas. We considered Fredricksburg and Washington DC very hard, but felt we just couldn't give them the time they needed so they are the list for next year. We will be the boat in the Miami Boat Show in February, so please come visit if you are planning to come to the show.

Cheers!

Buenos Aires to Plymouth Massachusetts (Part 6)

British Virgin Islands

British Virgin Islands

Maite and I had the pleasure of sailing in the British Virgins from May 12 until June 18 when we set sail for the Spanish Virgins, the Bahamas and Florida. We hosted my family from May 21 to May 28  aboard Calypso playing host to anywhere from three to eight people and two or three dogs. We found this a good test of Calypso's livability and feel she came through with flying colors.

I thought I would start this post by just letting the views speak for themselves. Everywhere you looked it was paradise. Enjoy.

View from the bow of Calypso in Nanny Cay Marina

Beach at Nanny Cay looking south across Francis Drake Channel at the Indians and Norman Island

Entrance to Nanny Cay Marina

Ed and Meredith enjoy dinner at Nanny Cay Pegg Leg Restaurant (very good and unusual soups)

The "boys" standing guard on Calypso while we go to have dinner 

Sunset looking west from Bitter End Yacht Club in Gorda Sound Virgin Gorda

Marina Cay and Scrub Cay

Cane Garden Bay - North shore western Tortola

A day in the salon. No it's not a Triscuit commercial!

With so many aboard, sometimes we had to fight for the best places to sit.

Looks like Tyler has found a new favorite place to sit! My butt was just barely off the deck anyway...but now?

Bitter End Yacht Club (see all the anchor lights behind)

Meredith and Ed out for a paddle

Meredith and the Boys at the Baths

Calypso enroute to Virgin Gorda

Sunset in the Gorda Sound

Calypso after a salon cleanup.

Sunset at Soper's Hole

Cousins Cassie and Meredith at Bitter End looking forward to a good meal.

Sailing north from the Baths Mainsail and Genoa

Calypso in Nanny Cay Marina

Gorda Sound Virgin Gorda

Sailing in Sir Francis Drake Channel looking north toward Tortola and Beef Islands

Cockpit in port

Sunset at Cane Garden Bay. St. Thomas is behind the three boats to the left. Jost Van Dike is behind the boat in the foreground.

Cane Garden Bay 

Cane Garden Bay Resort : Ed tying up the dinghy

We used Nanny Cay, Tortola as a home base and had numerous short trips around the islands. Nanny Cay is a great little marina two inlets southwest of Road Town, on the southern coast of Tortola geographically in the middle of the British Virgins. It had a great open air restaurant, internet, a pool, breakfast cantina, laundry, chandlery, grocery, sail loft and dive shop. Anyone renting a slip also got to use the hotel showers. For someone getting used to sailing, this is the place to go. Water is deep, anchorages are plentiful and generally well protected with minimal swell. Destinations are within visible distance no more than a few hours sail or motor away. There seemed to be resorts, bars and restaurants around every bend.

Squall coming through on
Sir Francis Drake Channel

Sir Francis Drake Channel 15 minutes later

Sir Francis Drake Channel is 6 miles wide and runs from St. Thomas in an east northeast direction along the south coast of Tortola. Swells from the east are blocked by Virgin Gorda and from the southeast by a string of islands each with its own attractions, restaurants, bars, snorkeling spots, etc. Weather was generally great, sunny and about 85 degrees although an occasional squall would come through, they were gone in a few minutes. Nights were a cool 70 or so.

Ben learning to drive. "You sure you want me to drive?
How much did this thing cost?

Ben and Captain Bly preparing to hoist the mainsail.

After the kids arrived they got instruction on boat handling under power and under sail. We motored between two large buoys in Road Town Harbor about 200 yards apart much as Jeff had done for us during the Antares University in Grenada. Maite demanded her turn too. They were to stay on the Rhumb line between the two buoys using only engines, then rotate 180 degrees and back up to the buoy before setting off for the other buoy about 200 yards away. When the current kicked up, it got a bit tricky, but they all did very well. We also went out sailing with everybody taking turns at the helm, raising lower sails and tacking and trimming the main and genoa. They got a crash course in docking, anchoring, knot tying, maneuvering in tight marinas, toilet flushing, water conservation, dinghy launching and recover...all the stuff that you have to learn to survive on a sail boat. Oh and cleaning, fixing, more cleaning, oh the drudgery! What a Captain Bly I was! They  hadn't planned on four weeks in the Virgin Islands consisting of so much work!

Ready About!

Double Dog Dinghy Duty (Poo Poo Patrol) on our way to do our business twice
 a day at the Bite. We found that three dogs was just a bit much.

We also had to train our pups on how to user the bathroom. Initially they would not go on the boat and we had to dinghy them in twice a day. Eventually they learned to go on the tramps, which were easily cleaned.

In our 5 weeks we went in order to Norman Island and the Bite, the Indians, Virgin Gorda and the Baths, Peter Island, Virgin Gorda again but this time north to the Gorda Sound and Bitter End Yacht Club, then to the Dogs, Scrub Island and Marina Island, Jost Van Dyke, then to St John and St. Thomas, back to Nanny Cay, to Salt Island to dive the Rhone, made a full circle of Tortola from Nanny Cay to Trellis Bay then around the north side to and back to Nanny Cay. Our first trip was to the Baths. Imagine a mass of granite boulders anywhere from a few meters to 20 meters in diameter, thrown like marbles onto a beach and you have the Baths. Paths through the boulders have been set up with ladders and ropes to help you through, while the surf come in partially filling the caverns between. Snorkeling and was hard to beat but unfortunately the area is exposed and only day mooring is permitted.

Dropping anchor at the Baths (south end of Virgin Gorda)

Ladies at the Bitter End

Bitter End Yacht Club in Gorda Sound

We then motored north past Spanish Town and into Virgin Gorda Sound and to the Bitter End Yacht Club. What a beautiful place. The combination of the sunset, the anchor lights of all the boats and the stars next to the open fires and grass huts was a vision of paradise.

Tyler's gone AWOL

The next morning we started out the the sound and my Golden, Tyler bolted. He decided he was going for a swim, so we had an impromptu DOB drill several miles off shore. He got about a hundred yards away before we reversed course. When he finally made it back aboard he was pretty tired.

Tyler after his swim in the Gorda Sound
back to his preferred post at the helm

After giving the cousins an introduction to scuba, we dove the Indians off the cost of Norman Island. These provided a nice quiet dive to about 40 feet with some impressive rock formations and fish life. The bite and Norman Island sitting just a quarter mile off from the Indians is the island made famous by Robert Louis Stevensons "Treasure Island". As a last dive of the trip we dove the wreck of the Rhone, a 19th century sail/steam mail freighter that was thrown on the rocks by a hurricane in the late 1850s. There was a dinghy line to secure you dinghy so that you can dive the wreck. As it is on the western end of Salt Island it can get a swell going and quite a bit of current near the bow of the wreck so be careful. The wreck sits with its props in about 20 feet of water, and the bow section in about 70 feet of water oriented 90 degrees to the stern section.

One our last outings was to the Pusser's restaurant on Marina Cay. The video above gives a bit of the flavor of the place. It sits just south of Scrub Island, a few miles northeast of Trellis Bay. Trellis Bay is on the northeast side of Tortola directly north of the airport.

Meredith and Tucker heading home.

 All good things must come to an end and near the end of May Meredith had to head home and my family from California had returned to their lives. Ben, Maite and I spent a week or so getting the boat ready for our passage to Stuart, Florida. Warranty work was completed as much as was likely to be completed, and we left on June 11th to pick up Martin at the Tortola airport. We spent the night at Soper's Hole, had a fine dinner there, cleared Customs and the next morning we departed for Culebra, Puerto Rico, Exumas and Florida.